Mend

How to spell mend

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mend

What does mend mean?

1. verbTo repair something that is broken, torn, or damaged so it works or fits again.
2. verbTo improve in health or return to good condition after illness or trouble.

Mend in a sentence

• She sat down to mend the torn hem on her coat.

• The doctor said her broken wrist would mend within six weeks.

• A good cobbler can mend worn leather boots cheaply.

• Rest and patience helped him slowly mend after the operation.

Where does mend come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Mend is a shortened, everyday form of the older verb amend, which English took from Old French amender in the 1200s. The ultimate source is the Latin emendare, meaning 'to free from fault' or 'to correct', built from the prefix e- 'out of' and menda 'a fault or blemish'. Over time English speakers clipped off the unstressed first syllable, so amend (still used for correcting documents and laws) and mend (used for repairing torn or broken things) drifted into two separate words from the same root. The same Latin menda also lies behind 'emend', the scholarly term for correcting a text. Because mend is a short, phonetically regular word, its spelling has stayed stable and gives writers almost no trouble.

How the word is built

• mend (aphetic form of amend: from Latin emendare, to free from fault)